


Let me go, Boys (to the empty kingdom)

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Background Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Cooking, Domestic, Fallen Castiel, Hot Tub, M/M, Porn, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2012-05-10
Packaged: 2017-11-05 02:58:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A deserted town, in which Dean and Castiel make lovely burgers and make love (or something similar) in a hot-tub. But it's angstier than it sounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let me go, Boys (to the empty kingdom)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set in the same AU as [A World That's Still Here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/370287), but is in no way related to that story, beyond me just fiddling around with the same basic premise. Essentially, it's an End!verse-ish AU, where Sam died at the end of season 5, and Cas never showed up at the cemetery, and consequently stayed more-or-less fallen. Croatoan has broken out on a very small scale, due to one or two of the people Sam, Bobby and Cas rescued from the warehouse being infected.

“Are you coming?” Dean asks, holding the passenger side door open for Castiel. The sun is beating down over-head, and the angel has removed both his overcoat and his jacket. Dean has never seen him look so small. 

“Of co--” Castiel starts to say, but closes his mouth at Dean's glare and thins his lips. “I am.”

“Well, get in,” Dean says. He holds the door until Castiel is inside the car, then steps round to the drivers side and climbs in, turning on the stereo as he starts up the engine. 

“Where are we going?” Castiel asks, raising his voice above the loud music. For a moment he thinks Dean doesn't hear him, and is about to repeat himself when Dean starts backing up the driveway, twisted around to look over his shoulder and answers: 

“Anywhere.”

*

_The air seems to vibrate the moment Dean gets angry, and Castiel drifts towards wakefulness, riding on the sharp tones of the older Winchester's voice._

_“No. No! I didn't sign up for that!”_

_The air is dark outside, raindrops are dragging their way down the windows lazily. Castiel has one eye open – he can't see Dean's face, nor Sam's. Only the back of the seat in front of him, and the glass reflecting the dark night outside. He doesn't move. He listens to their conversation, still half asleep._

_The car is humming as Dean drives her smoothly down the road. Castiel tries to fight the way that she drags him back towards sleep, but his eyes drift closed. Dean's lost his angry tone now – he's gone deathly silent._

*

Castiel wakes again, several weeks later, in the back of the Impala once more. He wakes more abruptly this time: He's growing used to the sensation, but still, every time he realises he's been sleeping, those last few inches towards consciousness are a jump-start of alarm. 

His eyes meet Dean's in the rear-view window. Dean immediately looks back at the road, pretending he doesn't notice that Castiel has woken. He hums to himself – Castiel doesn't recognise the tune, unsurprisingly. 

“How much further?” Castiel asks, voice rough. 

“Ugh, don't start,” Dean replies, but the sun outside is setting, so they're probably close to a town. Dean usually stops driving for the night. Usually. “' _Are we there yet? Are we there yet? _' Gets old fast, Cas.”__

“I'm hungry.” 

Dean looks into the rear-view again at Castiel's voice, quirking an eyebrow. The angel has been eating now for a number of days, but that's the first he's acknowledged the need aloud. 

“Goddamn, you whine more than--” Dean takes a deep breath, then puts his foot on the peddle that much harder, pushing even further over the speed limit as they soar down the highway. “We'll be in town in half an hour, how's that sound?”

Castiel tugs at his collar, straightening the shirt, rumpled from sleep. “Fine, Dean,” he replies. 

“Here,” Dean says, throwing a folded newspaper over his shoulder into the back seat. “I picked that up at a gas station while you were dead to the world. Why don't you see if there's anything that might be a hunt?”

“Yes, Dean,” Castiel replies, thumbing through the newspaper. He's not quite sure what he's looking for, but doesn't say anything, hoping he'll know it when he sees it. He's half way through the newspaper when the sun sets enough that it becomes too dark to read. He folds it up again, and puts it on the seat next to him. 

“Nothing?” 

“I'll look further once we get inside,” Castiel says, turning his attention to the window. He can see the vague lights of a small town in the distance, hazy in the light drizzle of rain that's falling. Mostly he just sees his own reflection. His skin is haggard, his hair at ends and he looks exhausted to his own eyes. 

“Lets just get take-out,” Dean says as they drive into town, “and head straight to a motel.” Castiel wonders if it's for his sake – whether he looks as tired to Dean as he does to himself. But then, he thinks, looking at Dean in the rear-view, the other man isn't faring much better. 

Dean slows the Impala to a crawl as they creep down the streets of the small town. He is peering out the right hand window with narrowed eyes, looking for anywhere that'll do a burger to go, and Castiel is doing the same on the left. So far he has only seen neatly trimmed gardens, a white panelled church, and a primary school. 

Dean huffs out a laugh after five minutes of driving down what they assume is the main street. “Jesus,” he says. “Kinda town where you could get arrested for dancing, this one.” He glances over his shoulder at Castiel with a lopsided grin that Castiel answers with furrowed eyebrows. “One good thing about you, man – Sammy wouldn't've let me live that one down.”

Castiel wants to say, _please stop comparing me to him, it's killing you_ , but instead he says, “There,” and points to a diner that's glowing like a beacon, the roof and windows lined in glowing red stripes. 

“Salvation,” Dean says, and parks the car. 

*

At the only motel in town, the only available room is a king single. They both agree that's fine – Dean says he prefers sleeping on chairs, anyway, and it's not like either of them ever sleep the night through. They can take the bed in shifts if need be. 

Now, they're both sitting on it, plastic bags and aluminium foil spread out between them like a picnic blanket. They bite hungrily into burgers and take turns with the one provided spork to dig into a container of sloppy, too sweet coleslaw. The television is on – some panel show – the sound turned down so low that it's just a gentle, unintelligible buzz in the background. 

“The rest is yours,” Dean says, pushing the slaw towards Castiel, who takes another bite before putting it on the night-stand and forgetting about it. Dean unwraps his second bacon cheeseburger, tosses another foil package across the bed. Castiel scrunches up the greasy foil from his last one, and works open the fresh one. He looks up at Dean, who's biting into the burger less hurriedly now. He's savouring the taste. As Castiel watches, a splash of ketchup squeezes its way out of the side of the burger, and falls towards the bed spread. 

He must still have some angel in him, he thinks, because he catches the ketchup in a discarded napkin before it hits the blankets. 

“Awesome,” Dean says. The cheeseburger is demolished in minutes, and shortly after, Dean is off the bed, shedding his jacket and dropping it over the back of the sofa. Castiel focusses on what's left of his meal as Dean walks round the room, probably doing a how-fast-can-I-demon-proof-if-need-be check. 

“I dunno why I still buy salad,” he says, glancing at the discarded coleslaw. “Neither of us eat it.”

“Would you like to watch a movie?” Castiel replies quickly. There are a handful of generic DVDs under the T.V., and Dean glances at them before waving a hand dismissively. 

“Sure thing,” he says. “You pick something.”

Castiel gets off the bed, picking up the litter they've accumulated as he does, and crouches down to look at the titles he doesn't associate with anything. He wants to pick something that will distract Dean from the mood Castiel can see him spiralling into, again. But he doesn't know what to choose.

He thinks he picks wrong, at first, the drama on the screen doing absolutely nothing to capture Dean's attention. However, forty-five minutes into the film and Dean is snoring on the bed beside him, looking unusually peaceful, so Castiel smiles to himself, turns down the volume just enough so that Dean doesn't sense a change in the surroundings but also won't be startled by any sudden noises from the screen, and slides off the bed. He kneels at the base and tugs gently at the laces on Dean's shoes, taking his time to pull them off without waking him, then sits on the floor. 

A small spider crawls out from under the bed, and Castiel squashes it with one finger. The legs twitch for a moment before going still, and he sighs. Squeezing his eyes shut, he places the same finger on the spider's flattened body and draws from the drying well of grace within him. 

It scurries away across the floor and Castiel blinks once, his eyes following the little black body across the room before they slip closed and he too falls asleep, propped up against the mattress behind him. 

*

“Rise and shine,” Dean coos at day-break, shaking Castiel's shoulder. Low but burning bright morning sunlight glares through the thin curtains, and Castiel blinks dazedly. 

 

“It's morning?”

“Sure is,” Dean says, sounding about as surprised as Castiel feels. “Haven't slept that long in, well. A good long time. What are you doing on the floor, man? You'll screw up your back.”

“I... exerted myself,” Castiel says, pushing himself to his feet. Sure enough, his spine cracks. “Ouch.”

“Told you,” Dean says, pulling his boots back on and pulling at the laces. “I'm serious, Cas. You can't just be weird and eccentric and spend the night curled up at the foot of the bed like a fucking dog, okay? You gotta look after yourself. What the fuck were you doing to 'exert yourself', anyway?”

Castiel glares at Dean, unhappy with the sharpness in his tone. “I performed a miracle,” he says, his tone ambiguously sarcastic. 

“Right.” Dean stands up, crossing the room. “Well don't,” he says, and pushes open the bathroom door, leaving it ajar as he pisses and then brushes his teeth. Castiel stands and waits for him. His voice drifts through the open door. “I'm telling you, if we don't find a hunt today I'm shooting something just on principle.”

“The apocalypse is over, Dean,” Castiel replies calmly, picking up the newspaper he didn't finish reading the day before. “Heaven and hell are likely regrouping, and it only stands to reason supernatural occurrences will begin to quieten down.” 

“So demons and angels keep their noses out of our business for a while, so what? Don't mean there's not ghosts and Wendigos and freaking witches. What, they taking a summer vacation too?” He steps back out of the bathroom, wiping toothpaste from the corner of his mouth. 

“Certainly not,” Castiel replies, and hands Dean the newspaper, folded onto a page near the back featuring a brief story covering a series of missing persons in a town a couple of hours away. Dean's face lights up, and Castiel wishes he could always make him this happy. 

*

Dean parks the Impala at the entrance to the town, and doesn't move. “Jesus, Cas, I thought that article said like, five people had gone missing.”

“That would appear to have been an understatement,” Castiel replies slowly, as they survey the lifeless town. Dean opens the door of the car, and steps out, walking slowly down the main street. Castiel follows. They pass no one. Every house is still and quiet. Every shop is empty, doors open. Dean curses under his breath. 

“Not good, man,” he says, and walks over to a nearby gate that sits slightly ajar, and pushes it open with a harsh creak. Walking up the path cautiously, he motions for Castiel to cover him, and tries the handle on the front door. It's unlocked. The door opens inwards, revealing an empty corridor. Dean doesn't look over his shoulder as he calls, “Cas?”

“I'm here,” Castiel says from a few feet behind him. He's got his back to Dean, watching the deserted street carefully. 

“I'm gonna take a look around inside,” Dean says. “Stay here and keep look out. You got a gun on you?”

“I am not unarmed,” Castiel replies, and reaches into his coat. Dean glances back, quickly, and catches a glint of nearly white silver reflecting in the sun. 

“Still got that, then?” he asks, hovering by the door. 

“I will have it as long as I have my wings,” Castiel replies, and Dean steps into the house instead of asking how long that will be, now. 

He emerges ten minutes later, shaking his head at Castiel's quizzical look. 

“Empty,” he says. “No signs of violence. No EMF. No sulphur. I'll bet you fifty bucks we'll find the same in the rest of the houses. Not been long, though. Fresh fruit on the table, still ripe.” He tosses Castiel an apple as he steps off the porch and over to the other man. Castiel looks at the fruit for a moment, then takes a bite from it and hands it back to Dean who does the same. They haven't eaten since they set out at day-break and it's mid-afternoon now. 

“Shall we inspect another?” Castiel asks, and Dean shrugs. They move out onto the street again, and choose a random house, further along the road. This time Castiel follows Dean inside. 

The house is perfectly normal, on the inside. Not particularly clean, but in a lived in way, not an abandoned way. The beds are unmade, the stove has an empty pot from the last meal sitting on it. 

“What are you thinking, Dean?”

Dean walks over to the back door, pulling aside the curtain that hangs down in front of it, and peers out into the garden. “I'm thinking this can't be good.”

“Yes,” Castiel replies. Letting the curtain fall back into place, Dean turns around and frowns. “Anything out there?”

“A kennel. No dog I could see.” He walks back across the room, brushing past Castiel, one hand tugging on his arm insistently. “C'mon. Head further into town, see what we got.”

The center of town is as dead as the outskirts, and Dean makes a comment about tumble-weed which Castiel doesn't immediately understand, although he knows what tumble-weed is well enough that he thinks he can extrapolate the metaphor. 

Dean pauses beside the fence outside an up-scale house, and swears under his breath. Castiel pauses, glances back. _Croatoan_ is scrawled across the gate. “Well that explains it,” Dean says gruffly, and kicks at the gate. It swings inward with a creak. “This is a nice pad, hey Cas?”

It is indeed. Three stories of suburban fantasy, complete with manicured garden and second storey patio and barbecue. Dean walks right up to the unlocked door and straight inside, leaving it ajar behind him for Castiel to follow. Which he does, which he will always do. 

“... Dean?” he calls, once inside the hall. The floor is polished beneath his feet, the staircase lushly carpeted. Several pairs of shoes sit beside the door on a small mat. Before walking further, Castiel kneels to untie his own and set them aside. 

“Upstairs,” Dean calls, and Castiel glances up, seeing him leaning over the railing and grinning down. “You're gonna love this, Cas. These fucking beds!”

Castiel frowns, pausing on the first step as he moves to follow. Wearing only his socks, his feet seem to literally sink into the thick carpet. “What are you doing, Dean? Why are we in here?”

“Making the most of a bad situation,” Dean says, his voice slightly fainter. He's disappeared from view, and Castiel assumes he's gone into one of the upstairs rooms, so he climbs up to the landing, still frowning. True enough, Dean is in the closest bedroom, what looks like the master one. The bed is massive, clad in rich, deep red covers and a set of (matching) pillows so luxurious in size and extravagant in quantity that Castiel is actually dumbfounded as to why there are so many. Along the wall is a built in wardrobe hid behind a line of full length mirrors that line the entire wall. Of all the things in the room, Castiel's gaze is drawn to the book on the bedside table, folded half open with a pair of reading glasses sitting on top. 

“This is someone's home, Dean,” Castiel says. “Please stop bouncing on the bed.”

Dean's not jumping or anything, just sitting on thee edge and testing it's springiness. He shoots Castiel a look. “Not anymore.”

“Okay. Can we leave?”

“ _No_ , Cas. Not-- just, not right now, okay? Lets have an evening in. Some goddamn fun for once.”

“It feels macabre.”

“Our lives are macabre, man. Really fucking macabre.” 

Castiel lowers his gaze for a moment, catching sight of Dean's feet in his working boots. “You should take your shoes off,” he says, offhandedly. If they're going to do this, he thinks, they should at least pay some respect to how the home's unknown inhabitants kept their house. 

“Good boy,” Dean says, and kicks off the boots without bothering to untie the laces. They land somewhere in the corner. 

When Castiel looks, Dean is grinning at him, and the sight brings the small tug of a smile to Castiel's lips. 

“Okay?” Dean says. “It's wrong, it's morbid, but there's nothing better to be done with a Croate town, alright?” He's looking for approval, looking to not be alone in this empty, deserted, dead town. Castiel can do that. He and Dean can have a world to themselves tonight. 

“It's okay,” he says, nodding once. 

“Good.” Dean jumps to his feet, knocking Castiel's shoulder with his own and jerking his head for him to follow. “Because I'm pretty sure I saw a hot tub in the en suite.”

*

The fridge is large and well stocked. The cooler is packed with fresh, chilled vegetables; the inside of the door lined with eggs and milk and little jars of condiments Castiel can't name; each shelf lined with cheeses and yoghurt, white meat, red meat, fish; a small area on the very topmost shelf is reserved for sweets. Dean glares at the fridge as if it's a challenge. “It's the fucking food pyramid,” he says, and draws in a deep breath through his nose. “Alright. We can do this.”

Castiel is not so sure. “We cannot.”

“You don't have faith in me, Cas?”

“I have all the faith in the world in you,” he says, and pulls the packet of ground beef from the fridge, holding it tenderly as if it were going to explode. “But not, necessarily, in this matter. I have absolutely _no_ faith in myself.”

“That's alright, we'll put you on onion duty. I'd pay to see you cry.” He takes the beef from Castiel's hands and slaps him once on the back, grabbing an egg from the fridge before swinging it shut. 

Under the counter island that inhabits the center of the kitchen there's a dark alcove with a small basket – this is where Castiel spots the onions, along with a pile of potatoes and a number of other root vegetables. He grabs one, and turns just as Dean tosses him a knife with a wink. 

“Get the skin off,” he says, “and make the bits so small you can't see 'em. Got it, dude?”

Castiel raises a shoulder in what might be a shrug. “I think I can manage,” he says, holding the onion in his palm, resting his thumb on the back of the knife and slicing down the skin, pulling it off in a smooth movement before setting it down on the chopping board. “What 'duty' are you on?”

“The tex-mex seasoning hunting duty,” Dean replies, one head buried in the pantry above the stove. “Ha! And it's a success. Trust posh fucks to never make their own shit.” He drops the small container on the counter, and scrounges around in a few more cupboards before pulling out a mixing bowl and a wide frying pan. As he empties ground beef, seasoning and cracks open an egg into the bowl, Castiel focusses on chopping the onion. He quickly decimates it, but blinks in surprise as his eyes start to sting, and takes a step back, putting the knife down. 

Dean chuckles as Castiel brings a sleeve across his eyes, looking affronted. “Aw, kid, you okay? Need a lollipop?” The onions are thoroughly chopped though, so Castiel is free to look surly from a distance as Dean drops them into the bowl and combines the mixture with his fingers. “See?” he says, “Easy as pie.”

Grilling the burgers, too, poses little challenge, and Castiel fares better at chopping the lone jalapeño they find in the fridge than he did with the onion, ignoring Dean's suggestion that _hey, does your eye feel a little itchy, Cas?_ , and washing his hands thoroughly instead. They grill a couple of bread buns, and dig up some packaged slices of plastic-y cheese from the back of the fridge, hidden behind the fancy stuff. 

“And that's how you home-cook,” Dean says around a mouthful of not-too-burnt burger, and washes it down with the first of what will be several beers this evening. 

*

Particularly once it gets dark, really, it doesn't even feel as if they're alone in this town. Just this house, which is starting to feel more like a home, something they have claim to, with every beer, every shot of ( _very_ nice) whisky. The television in on, and the background noise of American Idol could be anything, anywhere. Castiel isn't close to drunk, having kept pace with Dean who is, to put it lightly, very relaxed indeed. 

“This is like,” he's saying, and Castiel is listening because it's not like Dean gets properly talk-about-your-life chatty much, “like when I hook up with a chick and maybe stay a day or two, and it's all... this is how they all live, the rest of them. Every night. It's not a once in a lifetime thing to make their own dinner, you know?” He doesn't sound morose at all, so Castiel is smiling as he listens. Even when he continues: “It's what Sammy wanted, you know? What he had, I guess, for a while...” Dean still sounds more wistful than unhappy. He snorts. “Never quite got it myself.”

“You are enjoying yourself tonight,” Castiel points out. He's sitting on the floor, next to the coffee table. Dean is sprawled across the sofa, arms stretched out, head tipped back, beer bottle dangling from the fingertips of one hand. 

“Yeah, but would you want it every day?” 

“No,” Castiel says honestly. He doesn't say it's simply because he doesn't really want for much except Dean's aspirations. Which are the endless road, the smell of gunpowder, the stitches when they bleed. 

And Sam. 

“We have what we have,” Dean says, which admittedly isn't much. He lifts his head, and like a giant coming to life from Castiel's lowered viewpoint, rises from the couch. “Lets go try out that hot-tub.” 

*

Castiel has been submerged in water before, once or twice, over the millennia. But not like this. This is something _else_. 

“Oh,” he says as he sinks into the water opposite Dean. There is a bubbling jet stream of water pounding into his lower back, and he twists, testing the sensation. 

“Good?” Dean asks, voice slurred. His head is tipped back on a folded up towel, eyes closed – partly in relaxation, partly to give Castiel privacy as he stripped off and climbed into the cloudy water. 

“Dean, I have lived in heaven my whole life.” He sinks lower in the water, feeling his skin warm, watching the way it pinkens. “Heaven should have these.”

The other man snorts, and cracks one eye open, looking at Castiel's astonished face. “Oh, dude,” he laughs, genuinely cracking up, “I think this is the first time I've seen you without the coat.” It's not true. It's not even the first time Dean has seen Castiel's bare chest. But there's something different to being naked with someone in a tub of warm, bubbling water and slicing into their skin as if they were a woodcut. 

“Here.” Dean has brought the bottle of whisky upstairs, and is now holding it across the tub to Castiel, who takes a long draught as Dean fiddles with the glowing controls on the side of the hot tub, shooting the heat up a few notches, changing the direction and pressure of the bubbles until he finds a combination he likes. Castiel feels about in the water with one hand, following the changing jets of water curiously. 

“Keep feeling around in that direction and your going to get a surprise, Cas,” Dean says pointedly, holding his hand out for the bottle again. Castiel passes it back, and glances down at the water. It's foggy with turbulence and bubbles, but clear enough that he can make out the shape of Dean's erection only inches from where his fingers had been. 

“Oh,” Castiel says again, in a different tone this time. Dean waves a hand through the steamy air. 

“Don't worry 'bout it, man. Freaking bubbles.” 

“Bubbles are arousing?”

“In some places,” Dean says, with a flash of teeth. Castiel feels his eyes twitch and narrow, and settles back in the water again, shifting around with the jets of water shooting from the little point around the edge of the tub, searching. Dean isn't really looking at him now, occupied with the label on the whiskey bottle, but he glances up when Castiel makes a soft, slightly alarmed noise. 

He gets it now, sitting alongside the side of the tub, twisted so that one of the warm jets of water is shooting deliberately over the skin of his now rapidly hardening cock. 

“Oh, _dude_ ,” Dean says, looking kind of put upon. “C'mon, you didn't-- curiosity killed the angel, Cas. We're not going through your sexual awakening _now_.” 

Castiel jerks his heard to look back at Dean, lips parted, and twists again, away from the jet of water he'd been getting fresh with. He thinks he should be feeling ashamed, or scared, or _something_. Instead, he just wants to chase that feeling again. “Sorry.”

“Don't fucking apologise,” Dean mutters. “I mean-- if you want, there's a nice comfy bed down the hall. I'll stay here, you can go learn the hills and valleys of your body or whatever. Just. Boundaries, man.”

“I wouldn't know where to start,” Castiel shrugs, trying to will the blood out of his penis. Unsuccessfully. Dean bites his lip, shakes his head, takes another drink from the neck of the bottle. 

“Times like these, 'You catch the game last night?' won't really cut it, right?” 

“You are commenting on your discomfort with this situation,” Castiel observes. 

“I'm wondering if I should help you out or not,” Dean replies. “I mean, you're clearly in need of a Yoda.”

Castiel isn't sure what to say. If he's honest, he's not even sure what is on offer. He knows what he thinks he hears, but it can't be what Dean is saying. He was wrong the last time, following Dean from the dilapidated room where they were waiting for Raphael and morning, thinking for a crazy moment he was going to lead him upstairs, to a dirty mattress, not to his car and the subsequent brothel.

“Alright, blink twice if you're up for this, stare like a freak if you've got some sort of sex phobia and want to hold onto your cherry. It's honestly cool either way.”

“Up for what?” Castiel manages to croak out. 

“How 'bout I show you?”

*

Castiel pants damply next to Dean's ear, his fingers slipping, trying to grip for purchase on the smooth fibreglass of the rim of the hot-tub. His knees slip back through the water, grazing past Dean's thighs. Dean, who tightens his grip on Castiel's hip, pulling him close, holding him still. 

Castiel stutters out the start of Dean's name, cutting himself off with a gasp. Wet against his stubbled cheek, Dean shushes him, hand stroking up and down his flank. The current of the water prickles the hairs on his leg. 

“Easy, easy,” Dean says, slowing his strokes over the length of Castiel's cock, tightening his grip at the base. He pulls back, looks Castiel in the eyes. Opens his mouth as if to ask _You okay?_ , but instead what comes out is, “Hold back, Cas. Take it slow. It'll be better.”

“Nothing could be better,” Castiel replies, and it's times like these Dean wishes his angel had a filter. He grits his teeth, fingers gripping at the nape of Castiel's neck, pulling him close again. Closing his eyes, Dean bites gently on the curve of Castiel's shoulder, lengthens his strokes again. 

It doesn't take much for Castiel to start trembling, the skin out of the water goose-bumping, his flesh jumping under the hand Dean isn't using to stroke his cock. “I promise you that's not true,” Dean replies, murmurs against the shape of Castiel's ear. 

“I want to – want you to show me.”

Dean's not drunk enough for this. 

“You'll have it all, angel,” he says. “Not right now. One thing at a time. Hold your horses.”

“I _have_ no--”

Dean presses a kiss to the corner of Castiel's lips, barely connecting, but shutting him up nonetheless. “None of that.”

Castiel's head turns on instinct, lips following Dean's as they pull away. It's not a kiss, not really, as Castiel isn't sure what he's aiming for, and Dean's reluctant to initiate. Still, they stay like that, lips close together, panting into each other's mouths. Castiel's hips thrust shallowly into Dean's loose fist, through the water, seeking friction. 

Hand unsteady, he reaches down into the water, stroking his own fingers over the shaft of Dean's erection as it brushes against the side of his own. He caresses the head of Dean's cock. “I think I'm ready for that surprise now, Dean,” he says. 

Dean's eyes flutter, lids dropping to half-mast. “Yeah.” He licks his lips, tongue brushing the swell of Castiel's lower lip. “Yeah, I think you are.” He shortens his strokes, fast and earnest over the head of the angel's cock.

When Castiel comes it's like lightening, fizzling through the water to every nerve ending in his body, making the hairs on Dean's neck stand on end. Castiel tips his head back, his abdomen quivering, tensing and un-tensing rapidly as he empties himself into the water. He blinks twice, three times. A low sound thunders from his throat. 

Dean can't help but thrust his hips up, so, so close to coming himself despite having hardly been touched at all. 

*

_Is it enough?_ Castiel wonders. The bed is as soft and as over-pillowed and over-stuffed and comfortable as it looked, and (after putting it to some good use) Dean fell almost immediately asleep, head buried in the huge pile of cushions. Castiel lies awake on the other side of the bed. He'll drift off soon enough: Has learnt it comes quicker if he doesn't think about it. He faces the window on the far wall. They pulled the curtain before, pulled almost every curtain in the house, the sight of the ghost town below almost sickening to look over. The moonlight streams through the drapes nonetheless, and that, at least, is pleasant to the eye. 

Dean is on the far side, the space between them cold and uninviting. Castiel wishes this weren't so. Craves the closeness, the warmth of skin, again. It was close, he thinks, what they shared tonight. Everything. So close to what Dean craves so badly: Companionship. 

_But is it enough?_

The answer is, of course, no. It will never be enough. 

Without realising, Castiel finds himself drifting off. Sleep was closer than he thought. 

*

Castiel wakes up human. It feels that way at least. Diffused sunlight is now glowing behind the curtains, and he turns away from the light, eyes squeezing even more tightly closed. When he rolls over, he can feel Dean's breath on his face. 

His stomach is twisting with hunger, his mouth dry with thirst – neither are intrusive, just a distant, dull sensation reminding him of his physical presence. 

He lies like that for long minutes, somewhere on the edge of wakefulness and the other thing. Dean must think he's still asleep, because he feels a tentative touch to his cheek. He can sense Dean's hesitancy, the way his hand pauses millimetres from his skin, the lingering, almost static sensation of fingers grazing the ends of near-invisible hairs. Then the caress. He leans into it. 

“You're awake,” Dean says, voice gravelly with sleep and probably hangover. 

“Bright,” Castiel says in reply. His tone sounds whining to his own ears. Dean chuckles, thumb rubbing back and forth over the stubble at the corner of Castiel's mouth. The angel's lips part, grazing over Dean's digit, kissing it dryly, tongue darting out over the pad. Dean groans, pushes his thumb forward into Castiel's mouth, who takes it inside obediently, eyes finally opening and focussing on Deans. 

Suddenly he finds himself pushed onto his back, Dean's knees on either side of his waist, pinning him down. The thumb is gone from between his lips, replaced by two forefingers, which Dean is fucking in and out of his mouth. Castiel can feel his saliva coating Dean's fingers, clinging to the corners of his lips. He moans deep in his throat, lets his eyes flutter shut again, works his tongue over the digits. 

“ _Fuck_ , Cas.” Dean sounds wrecked. His hips jerk forward, angling to rub his bare erection up against Castiel's cock. “You don't know what you're making me wanna do.” 

Castiel can guess. Lifting one hand up, he pushes at Dean's wrist until he removes his fingers, then reaches out, coaxing Dean forward until he's kneeling over his face. Dean shakes his head disbelievingly even as he leans forward, bracing himself on the cushioned headboard. 

“No, Cas, what--” He draws a breath in through his nose. “What are you-- what are we...?”

“Whatever we want, Dean,” Castiel says, hand coming up to stroke Dean's cock where it bobs in front of his face. He squeezes his grip over the blushing head, coaxing out a thick bead of pre-cum. “We're doing whatever we want, going anywhere we want to go.”

Dean angles his cock towards Castiel's lips, who parts them willingly, taking him inside. 

*

Apparently, in a completely sound-proofed room, human beings will become nauseas, their minds will create phantom sounds. They cannot survive it for long, cannot endure the nothingness without losing their tentative grasp on reality. 

Watching Dean stand on the terrace off from their landing, Castiel wonders is the absolute stillness of a completely abandoned town on a windless day has a similar effect. He was standing there, looking out over the balcony with his fists curled on the metal railing when Castiel climbed into his (exorbitantly long) shower, and as far as he can tell, hasn't moved between then and now. Castiel adjusts the towel around his waist and takes a soft step forward. 

“Dean?”

“Out there,” Dean says, raising a hand to point ahead. 

Castiel can't see anything moving – just the street below, just the snatches of rooftops behind the empty houses opposite. 

“Tumble-weed?” he asks. 

Dean snorts. 

Castiel comes up level beside him, hand coming out to touch Dean's lower back. He peers out in the direction that the hunter is staring, tries narrowing his eyes. “Can you see it?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “You really can't see him?”

“Who is it? Where?”

Dean points at the window across the road. The curtains are drawn back, revealing a patchwork living room, a wall-high bookshelf. Castiel sees no movement, no shadows, no shapes. Who else could it be?

“He isn't here, Dean. We should move on.”

Dean is silent. 

The air is cool on Castiel's skin, the sun weak and gray. Suddenly he can feel the entire chill of the town's emptiness, the warmth of the soft bed and shower and spa inside, gone completely.

“I think it's time to move on, Dean.”

*

By the time they're climbing into the Impala, the time Dean is turning the key in the ignition, there are short glimpses of cars – probably police – in the distance. 

“Looks like paradise is lost,” Dean says as the engine rumbles to life. 

Castiel shifts on the car seat, feeling the leather give under him. Dean's arm is jammed into his space as he digs around in the glove compartment for a certain tape, and the car smells too lived in. He smiles to himself. Dean won't notice.


End file.
